The far right has never come this close to coming to power in France. Faced with this risk, Franco-Brazilian groups are alarmed by the eventual election of Marine Le Pen on social media, remembering what happened in Bolsonaro’s Brazil.

The second round of the presidential elections in France will be held next Sunday (24). This Wednesday, the first and only debate pits two candidates against each other: Emmanuel Macron, President of the centrist The Republic on the Move (LREM) party, and Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Reunion (RN).

The polarization of the country is great. Polls show Macron narrowly victorious and Le Pen could beat the current president at the polls. Many voters, especially the radical left party La France Insubmissa, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who came 3rd in the first round, intend not to vote in the second round, and even vote for the leader of the far right. For them, there is no difference between Macron and Le Pen, they compare, like choosing between “plague and cholera.”

“There really is a difference,” says sociologist Glauber Sezerino, co-chairman of the NGO Autres Brésil, a collaborator of CRID, the Collective of International Solidarity and Citizen Mobilization Organizations, and sharing with French citizens on social networks and social movements. “testimony from countries such as Brazil, Hungary and the Philippines that have had extremely violent far-right governments” in their work. For Glauber Sezerino, the allegory of plague and cholera is interesting because cholera has a mortality rate of 1% to 2%, and plague 30%. So there really is a real difference between plague and cholera.”

‘Decentralize the view’

The purpose of the mobilization of sociologists and Franco-Brazilian groups in social networks is to “decentralize” the gaze, to break out of the Franco-French bubble and compare the situation in the country with what is happening elsewhere. Here, Brazilian immigrants in France are somewhat simple because we have been in contact with a far-right government for four years (referring to Brazil’s government of Jair Bolsonaro). (…) We know that there is a practical difference between a far-right government and a far-right government, where all institutional processes and all democratic institutions are not respected; where the loss for population and social movements is significantly greater and incomparable”, he emphasizes.

In a post on Facebook, the co-chairman of the NGO Autres Brésil recalled the stance of militants from the Brazilian black movement, who in 2018 did not expect the Jair Bolsonaro government to worsen the situation in Brazil, despite being fascist and far-right. Violence in Brazil’s slums. parents. Only six months later they became reality. “No one expected the degree of barbarism that a far-right government could inflict in such a short time,” he says.

According to Glauber Sezerino, the balance of Macron’s government is negative but cannot be compared to the far right. “Marine Le Pen’s government was not a good government, incomparable to Macron’s government. It destroyed social rights, attacked the precarious, the popular neighborhood residents, the yellow vests … conquered rights, but remained a government. it has minimal respect for institutions. “

Parallel Between Marine Le Pen and Bolsonaro

For the sociologist, the parallel between Marine Le Pen and Jair Bolsonaro is in some ways possible. Sezerino says both want to reform the Constitution. “When we look at Marine Le Pen’s program, there are a number of proposals that violate the current Constitution. To impose this program, it will be necessary to completely change the rules of the game. For example, it is unconstitutional to prevent binationals from working in the civil service. Besides the”. If implemented, he warns, these “profound structural changes will be very difficult to reverse.”

The difference that Glauber Sezerino points to the difference between the president of Brazil and the leader of the French far right is the etiquette of Marine Le Pen. “He knows how to eat at the table” has a certain minimum of etiquette. But his program is as brutal as Bolsonaro’s.”

The sociologist disagrees that this “macro antagonism” would look like “everything but PT” in Brazil. In France, major resistance to the Macron vote consists of “sections of the left that have mobilized over the past five years and have been heavily attacked by the government”. In Brazil there was a “population-inflating campaign against the PT government, but in the 2018 elections” all non-PT and critical PT sections of the left sided with Haddad (the defeated PT candidate) against the PT. Bolsonaro,” he reports.

France is at this political turning point because successive governments have for years tried to win back the votes of far-right voters by adopting populist agendas such as the immigration issue. “This process of normalization of the far right fulfilled some of the electoral goals for the corporate right, which was to get votes from voters whose father had always voted for Jean Marie Le Pen and then started to vote for Marine Le Pen. Between voting for a copy of the far-right, some of Macron’s policies, or voting for the National Assembly, the original of the far-right, the voter is voting for RN. It is a bet, and that the French people will pay in the end.